Iris Adler

Program Manager , WBUR

Iris Adler was named WBUR’s program manager in January 2011. She provides strategic oversight for WBUR’s locally and nationally produced programs, and she collaborates with the WBUR Newsroom on the vision and content of special programming and series.

Iris began her public radio career at WBUR in the 1980s and ‘90s, first as a news reporter and then as managing editor and news director. She moved on to the all-news cable network NECN, where she worked for 18 years as executive editor. In that role she oversaw all political coverage as well as long-form series and documentaries.

Over the course of her career, she has won numerous national and regional awards for her work in both television and radio, including the Edward R. Murrow Award and several Emmy Awards.

A Brookline resident, Iris holds a master’s degree from Boston University and degrees from Concordia and McGill universities in Montreal.

Dr. Ralph Kelly, a medical researcher, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease when he was just 59. To open a special series, we meet Ralph and his wife Ruth, and learn how one family is coping with the early stages of the disease.

A Boston Globe investigation of the state’s Probation Department reveals rampant corruption and patronage throughout the parole system. There are a lot of unanswered questions: How did the commissioner gain so much power? Where was the oversight? And what harm do these findings pose for the public? We discuss the consequences.